'Domesticating Conflicts'- a look back at September 2015-

Domesticating Conflicts (one work as a week-long series of interventions in the gallery in an artist collaborative context)

Laboratory of Dissent was a collaborative residency with Chapel Arts Studios and the Winchester Gallery. Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic model (2007) inspired our interactions. My working group, inter-alia, explored the role of the artist as agitator, proposing to ‘domesticate’ rather than ‘eradicate’ conflicts (Chapel Art Studio Archive, 2015). Mouffe’s text served as a starting point to explore matters of identities and institutional politics. Agonism was explored through performative works between artists, audiences, arts institutions and academia.

My proposition:

Drawing from previous residency and commissioned works, I selected materials that would support the enquiry: 800m of knotted red ribbon, a ball of hand-spun, hand-dyed, red wool, black cards and white pens, words and questions.

Week 2 group, which I was part of, had decided to act as agitators for the full duration of the project in order to provoke/create/invite connections to be made with the full spectrum of artists and art practices engaged (including the visitors, students, Uni staff…). I responded with a series of interventions and provocations that tested the edges of our collaborative practice in the context of Dissent, bringing a burning subject: the migrant crisis, into the gallery context and making it impossible for others to ignore.

Agitation 1; Gallery Occupation